MADRID — President Donald Trump softened his tone toward Spain on Thursday, just hours after threatening to stop all trade with the NATO member nation. Spanish officials say the shift came after Trump was briefed on how dramatically Spain has increased its contributions to the alliance in recent years.
At a NATO summit held in Ankara on Wednesday, Trump labeled Spain a “terrible partner” and called for an immediate halt to all trade with the country, citing disagreements over defense spending and the conflict with Iran.
As Trump traveled back to the United States following the summit, he spoke with reporters aboard Air Force One and appeared to soften his position. “I did have issues, and I still do. But Spain, they came back all the way today. Spain was very generous today,” he said.
When asked what Spain had done to earn that praise, Trump responded: “They honoured a request for lots of payments, and if they didn’t, we wouldn’t have even talked to them.”
A spokesperson for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez interpreted Trump’s remarks as a reference to Spain meeting NATO’s previous defense spending benchmark of 2% of gross domestic product.
During the Ankara summit, Sanchez pointed out that Spain is on track to hit that 2% target this year — a significant milestone given that the country more than doubled its nominal defense spending from 0.98% of GDP in 2017 to nearly €33 billion (approximately $37.7 billion). Sanchez characterized the tension between the two nations as minor and said he had a “very cordial” exchange with Trump at the summit.
Despite the warmer words, Trump has continued to push back on Spain’s refusal to commit to a new NATO goal requiring member nations to spend 5% of GDP on defense by the year 2035. Spain’s left-leaning government has argued it prefers to address genuine security threats rather than boost spending simply to hit a number, warning that doing so would require cuts to social programs.
It remained unclear Thursday whether Trump’s softer language would have any practical effect on his earlier order to halt trade with Spain.
A U.S. official in Washington told Reuters that relevant federal agencies would be presenting Trump with a list — described as a “menu” — of Spanish goods that could potentially be subject to an embargo.
Legal experts in trade law say Trump could use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose a full or partial ban on Spanish imports. It’s worth noting that during his first term, Trump’s administration placed a 30% anti-dumping tariff on Spanish black olives back in 2018.
On the diplomatic front, Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles was scheduled to sit down Thursday with U.S. Ambassador Benjamin Leon for what was described as a “working meeting,” according to the Spanish government’s official calendar. No further details were provided.
Sources within the Spanish delegation to Ankara, cited by the newspaper El Mundo, suggested Madrid viewed the dispute as more of a performative conflict than a genuine crisis, noting that Spanish officials had not observed any real economic fallout or drop in U.S. investment in Spain despite Trump’s ongoing criticism.
Back in Spain, the dispute drew political reactions across party lines. Some members of the main opposition People’s Party (PP) placed blame on Prime Minister Sanchez for the friction, though they also expressed solidarity with their country. One senior PP official pointed to the deep economic ties between Spanish and American companies, arguing that “economic reality takes precedence over the grandiloquent statements (Trump) seeks to make in order to attack Spain.”
In the PP-governed region of Aragon — where major American technology companies including Amazon and Microsoft have poured billions of dollars into data center construction — local officials said operations were continuing normally.
Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Vox party and a known Trump ally, took a harsher view, calling the tensions with Washington “absolutely dramatic” and accusing Sanchez of “destroying Spain’s credibility on the world stage.”
